BY SOLA OGUNDIPE
LAGOS— IN line with the strategy of utilising public private partnership towards mitigating the impact of HIV & AIDS epidemic and other related ailments, National Agency for the Control of AIDS, NACA, in collaboration with National Communications Commission, NCC, and all major telecommunication companies, have pledged to collaborate in setting up a national call centre.

At a tripartite meeting in Lagos, yesterday, between top executives of NCC, NACA and the telecommunication companies, it was unanimously agreed that such collaboration was necessary to ensure effective public enlightenment and education through firm commitment in scaling up existing efforts and concrete partnerships that will help Nigerians access better information and referrals to service provisions in health care delivery across the nation.

Director-General, NACA, Prof. John Idoko, noted at the meeting that although the HIV prevalence rate was relatively low, the affected population was huge. He said: “We believe in fighting HIV & AIDS and the national call centre is vital in the fight.”

Idoko, who lamented that Nigeria was carrying more than 30 per cent of the global burden of mother to child transmission of HIV, remarked that it was a tragedy that 70,000 children are born HIV positive in the country every year, while more than 75 per cent of these children do not live to see their second birthday.

Chairman, NCC, Peter Igoh, said it was unacceptable that Nigeria had the second highest burden of HIV & AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

He said: ”This abysmal development necessitated establishment of the national call centre which provides platform for providing information, counselling and the potential to disseminate prevention and other useful messages concerning our developmental issues to the Nigerian populace.”

Pointing out that NACA had been mandated by the President to lead the process, Igoh said the national call centre initiative was a follow-up to the existing pilot scheme of four toll-free lines provided by Airtel (Celtel) in 2005 for counselling.

He said the rural prevalence of HIV epidemic was now greater than the urban prevalence in some areas, he said only 24 per cent of the populace has adequate information about HIV & AIDS while as much as 50 per cent of persons living with the virus do not know their status and continue to transmit the virus.

On the need for the partnership, Idoko said the initiative was mooted on the premise that companies possessed tremendous influence in engaging discussion and empowering people towards stemming stigma and discrimination. “Mobile networks can create the awareness with messages they transmit and break the silence. They can promote the discussion through targeted public advertisements and provide linkages for referral services,” he noted.

“It is being scaled up to a national call centre given that HIV & AIDS is entry point to other health issues and pivotal to achievement of all Millennium Development Goals.

Further, the NACA DG enumerated that an estimated three million Nigerians require treatment for HIV, while 1.5 million require drugs but only 500,000 are on drugs. The percentage of youn people with correct preventive information is low, and that is what we need to look at, just 24

It is important for us to provide the right information especially in the rural areas.